Salmon: The Real Truth
I grew up eating a significant amount of fish, however; most of the fish I ate was deep fried. Once I moved away for college I was finally exposed to the wonderful taste of salmon. I was under the impression that all salmon was caught wild in Alaska then shipped to my grocery store, but I was deeply misinformed. With this months blog I would like to give the reader a basic overview of what happens in the salmon industry.
I hope your visual like me as I’m going to paint you a picture of the life of a salmon. Logic would tell you that a salmon needs to be free swimming in the open waterways of the planet. The majority of the salmon you eat today is farm raised in small pens with very little room to move. Picture yourself sitting in your bathtub with two ten pound salmon sharing the same soundings as you. When it comes to meal time, salmon naturally would swim wildly to feast of it’s favorite food krill. Unfortunately, these pen raised fish lack the environment to eat krill. A caged salmons diet consists of corn meal, genetically modified canola oil, chicken feces, plus a barrage of antibiotics. I don’t know about you, but I certainly have no intentions of eating a fish like this. In 2004, The Journal of Science warned us if we consume farm raised salmon we will be eating a fish that has 7-10 times more PCB’s than a wild fish; not to mention the mercury that accumulates in the fish.
One of the nicest things about salmon if the pretty reds and pinks that salmon portray when they feed on krill. If you think the salmon in cages are vibrant in pink you are sadly misinformed. A farmed raised salmon remains a dull grey and remains this way up till harvest. The fish industry discovered if red dye is administered to the salmon the native pinks and reds would remain in the flesh. If you do some research on red dye you’ll find many people have reactions to the dye. In my local grocery store the salmon sold is labeled farm raised with red dye.
We are told that fish is so good for us and helps us with improved heart health, cancer, arthritis, and inflammatory diseases. The underlying reason for these benefits is a fatty substance called Omega 3. What we are not told is the amount of this valuable oil is minimal in farm raised fish. It’s important to know the reason why wild salmon are high in Omega 3 is their wild diet, while in a pen eating pellets the Omega 3 oils are minimal at best. Let us not believe all is lost as wild salmon is still available to the general public. You will find that wild salmon season is from May through October. Also keep in mind that even though a fish is labeled as wild it could still be farm raised. Please use discretion when buying your salmon, make sure its clean and of sound value.